A Spanish league winner with Real in 2011-2012, he is also a European Under-21 Championship winner with Germany and a German Cup holder with Bremen, where he also reached a Uefa Cup final.
The last thing Arsenal needed, especially at €50?million (£42?million) was another floaty, decorative attacking midfielder who would value beauty more highly than points on the board.
Özil is the polar opposite of self-indulgent. He displays no interest in elaboration for its own sake. Every move he makes, every pass he sends, is intended to cause a problem, or open up a possibility.
For the first couple of minutes of Arsenal's first home fixture in Group F, he was pretty much motionless in the No?10 position as he weighed up the positions of Napoli's defenders and central midfielders. He was computing the spaces around him. In fact Özil is one of those footballers who hardly need to go looking for space. Space seems to come to him when markers fail to appreciate where he might twist or turn.
But when the measuring out was done, Arsenal's new idol moved into demolition mode, first gliding to the edge of the Napoli box to meet an Aaron Ramsey cross with his left instep, then darting into the six-yard area to flick an assist (in the modern lexicon) to Olivier Giroud, who must have cartwheeled round his house when Özil said yes to Arsène Wenger.
The deadly pass is Özil's main calling card. He is a facilitator, a fixer, but he also wants to score, as his sweet finish demonstrated. From that range most players would have battered the shot. Özil shaped his boot to score by cushioned rebound. In 15 minutes he opened up clear ground between Arsenal and Rafa Benítez's side, with help from Giroud and Ramsey.
That most precious asset – the player who changes games, who unlocks the gate – is wearing the red No?11 shirt and delighting a London crowd who had grown weary of endless circular passing.
"I think Özil has been a very important player for Madrid – a really top player, and they made a mistake in letting him go," Fabio Capello, the former England and Real Madrid manager, said on the eve of this game. "I do not know what has happened there."
What happened was Isco and Gareth Bale: two players desired more heartily by Florentino Pérez, the Real president. But what a clanger.
Wenger's diplomatic triumph was to persuade Özil that a club that had not touched a trophy for eight years was the best destination for someone who had spent most of his time in Spain in harness with Cristiano Ronaldo.
"From the first day, everyone really welcomed me and put their trust in me," Özil said before this game. And no wonder. The talismanic world-class talent was hardly likely to be frozen out by players who could increasingly feel the heat of spectator wrath on their necks.
Playing for Arsenal was losing its prestige. It was an exercise in maintaining the pretence that youthful promise would emerge as a conquering force.
If Özil needed Wenger to restore his confidence, his No?1 starring role, then Wenger needed Özil to show that the manager understands the reality of modern football trading.
Home cultivation was not working anymore. Shopping in the £10?million-£15 million bracket had produced too many duds. The business, if not the game, had left Wenger behind. There is a finite number of midfielders who can unlock modern defences and Arsenal simply had to have one, even if it was on last-minute-dot-com.
Özil will have his quiet spells in games. He is not a relentless orchestrator, a Zinedine Zidane. Nor does he always prevail in 50-50 battles. But his bursts of activity are a delight, a reason alone to watch this Arsenal XI.
You can study him all night to see how he moves, deceives opponents, changes the angle of an attack, doubles back and delivers the pass that the other team can do absolutely nothing with, except watch and suffer.
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